A Springfield resident whose home is in foreclosure for non-payment of real estate taxes is suing the city in an effort to save her house and reform the state’s tax lien law.
She is represented by Pioneer Public Interest Law Center and Greater Boston Legal Services. Her attorneys are asking the Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) to review the state’s current tax-lien foreclosure law (M.G.L. c. 60) in light of a recent case published by the U.S. Supreme Court.
In the U.S. Supreme Court case, Tyler v. Hennepin County, the majority ruled that a Minnesota tax collector foreclosing on a homeowner’s property could recovery no more than what the municipality was rightfully owed.
Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Roberts noted,
The principle that a government may not take more from a taxpayer than she owes can trace its origins at least as far back as Runnymeade in 1215, where King John swore in the Magna Carta that when his sheriff or bailiff came to collect any debts owed him from a dead man, they could remove property “until the debt which is evident shall be fully paid to us; and the residue shall be left to the executors to fulfil the will of the deceased.”
The Minnesota law at issue in that case was very similar to the law in Massachusetts, according to the homeowner’s attorneys.
They are asking the SJC to stop all tax lien foreclosures for the next 90 days. Additionally, the homeowner’s lawyers want more flexibility in real estate tax payment plans, a reduction in interest rates (which are currently 16% per annum), and more plainly worded legal notices.